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By Ted Dunlap, on March 9th, 2019

I have read of, seen photos and videos of five star rating factories in China. It used to be that eBay, Amazon and others gave shoppers great value in their reviews and ratings. Price being equal, purchasing equations favored online because the ratings and reviews led you from the poorly designed or constructed to the good stuff. No more.

Large buildings stuffed with cheap computers, great Internet access and hundreds of full-time low-wage workers crank out reviews for products undeserving of one five star rating, let alone thousands of them. An average review rating of 4 1/2 stars may well mean ten honest one-star review being overwhelmed by the manufacturer’s ratings factory.

Reviews now read like e-mail or Craigslist scams:“The item arrived on time, was inexpensive and is the best ever.” – FIVE STARS

We can no longer trust the big online retailers for their rating value added. We need to dig deeper or look elsewhere.

One such “elsewhere” is GeekPrepper.com Below is a set of article headings that give a taste of what is there.

My primary message here is when your DuckDuckGo * websearch for your next purchase returns Amazon, eBay, and dozens of other sites, go to the others first. The big boys got a little to big and are top-heavy tipsy now.